Emotional health and wellbeing

Mental health is as important as physical health. Children and young people will struggle to learn unless they are able to understand and control their own emotions and have good mental health and wellbeing.

Because of their experiences both before and during care, looked-after children and previously looked-after children are at much greater risk of poor mental health than their peers.

To find out more about child mental health, please visit the NSPCC website.

Here are some resources and further advice to help you with promoting the positive emotional health and wellbeing of the children and young people who you work with.

There are further links you can access or share with parents and carers on the parents pages.

Training and support for schools and colleges to support the emotional and mental wellbeing of children and young people. Their offer includes consultation sessions and a range of training for staff.

Visit the Lancashire Emotional Health in Schools and Colleges website for more information.

Please visit the LSCft website to find out about emotional health and mental health services in your local area.

Kooth is a free, safe and anonymous online wellbeing service for children and young people aged 10-18years.

Young people using the site are able to access a range of support services including one-to-one counselling sessions, discussing issues with your peers through online discussion boards, reading and contributing to self-help content and recording their feelings via journals and goal trackers. The online nature of Kooth means that young people can access help in a way that is most suitable for them, at a time that is convenient for them, 365 days of the year.

You may find useful this guide for secondary schools to book in Kooth sessions or support (DOCX 103KB).

Here are some posters, brochures and letters that you may wish to use in school to promote Kooth:

NICE Social, emotional and mental wellbeing in primary and secondary education

This guideline covers ways to support social, emotional and mental wellbeing in children and young people in primary and secondary education (key stages 1 to 5), and people 25 years and under with special educational needs or disability in further education colleges. It aims to promote good social, emotional and psychological health to protect children and young people against behavioural and health problems.

DfE Mental health and behaviour in schools

This is non-statutory, departmental advice from the Department for Education (DfE)

Mentally Healthy Schools - Children's Mental Health Week 2023 toolkit of resources

A toolkit of resources for Children's Mental Health Week 2023, highlighting this year's theme of 'let's connect'.

Anna Freud Centre Mental health toolkit for schools and colleges

Here you will find some tools and assessments which will help you to measure and monitor the mental wellbeing of the children and young people in your school or setting.

MindEd is a free educational e-learning resource for professionals on children and young people’s mental health. Resources can be used for individual professional training as well as prompting wider staff discussion. These sessions aim to help staff better understand how being in care affects children:

MindEd - looked-after children: part 1 – challenges and principles

MindEd Looked-after children: part 2 – influencing factors and outcomes of care journeys

Harmful Sexual Behaviour Support Service

SWGfL and The Marie Collins Foundation has created a support service for professionals working with children and young people in tackling harmful sexual behaviours, funded by the Home Office and in collaboration with the Department for Education.

Harmful sexual behaviour is 'sexual behaviours expressed by children and young people under the age of 18 years old that are developmentally inappropriate, may be harmful towards self or others, or abusive towards another child, young person or adult' (Hackett, 2014).

The support service is available for anyone in England working with children and young people, particularly, designated safeguarding leads within primary and secondary schools and alternative provision. Support is also available to early years provision, colleges and wider safeguarding professionals (including police, social workers and health care professionals). If children within your care have been displaying or are affected by specific incidents of Harmful Sexual Behaviour, the support service can provide initial support and signpost to further resources and advice.

Other agencies who support children and young people with their emotional wellbeing and mental health include:

myHappymind (MHM) is used in many primary schools, for children from early years to year 6, and we have received very positive feedback about it.

MHM state that their science-backed programme for schools is grounded in the latest science and research about what it takes to create positive wellbeing.

myHappymind teaches habits to help children build resilience, self-esteem and confidence and there’s a curriculum for every year group. They also provide a staff wellbeing program and a Parent App too.

Here is a quote from the HT at St Peter's Catholic Primary School, Lytham St Annes

"We have recently introduced My Happy Minds (MHM) across all our classrooms at St Peter’s and in a very short period of time MHM has had an incredible impact on both staff and pupils' wellbeing and understanding of how their brain works and why they feel and react the way they do. Our children are becoming familiar with the three parts of their brains, using the MHM mascot Team HAP to provide a visual reminder. We have witnessed many children recognising what is happening within their brain when they feel challenged and as a result, instead of responding with negative emotions, they are understanding and recognising what has just happened in the brain and more importantly what action they need to take in order to regain emotional balance. Each child has a MHM journal in which they complete short activities, following a MHM session. We have embraced the MHM approach which, educates the child, the teacher and the parent. The parent’s app and the staff wellbeing portal is great and all our staff are enjoying working with the resources. The lessons are short, well planned and require minimal preparation and planning. 

We are really happy to chat to schools etc if they are interested."

To find out more, please visit the myHappymind website.

Seasons for Growth is an early intervention programme to support children and young people through grief brought on by loss or change in their lives such as bereavement, family breakdown and family struggles.

Seasons for Growth is an evidenced-based Australian programme that has been used by some schools in Lancashire and we have received positive feedback about it's outcomes.

You can visit the Seasons For Growth website for more information.